IRAQ - The Shi'ite-Sunni Balance Of Power.

Numerically, jihadis represent a tiny minority of fighters in Iraq. The vast majority, well over 90%, of the 70 or so attacks each day are staged by the nationalists. But the jihadis are responsible for high-profile car bombings and spectacular suicide attacks against Shi'ite mosques and other soft targets which account for the vast majority of all civilian casualties inflicted by the neo-Salafis.

On the world scale, however, neo-Salafis represent the extremist of more than 1.2 bn Sunni Muslims, as against a Shi'ite universe of no more than 150m. But the neo-Salafis can draw on a huge reservoir of young Sunnis living in Europe, the Arab region and the rest of the Muslim world. Huge parties from which they can draw support, whether direct and open or secretly, include Muslim Brotherhood chapters - there is a chapter practically in every Muslim country and every non-Muslim country which has a Sunni community. There is the huge Hizb-u-Tahrir (HuT), which has a presence throughout Europe and in most Muslim countries.

Human resources available to neo-Salafis worldwide through such parties can, therefore, be huge. These resources can be harnessed through Sunni mosques and through the internet (see Part 1 of this survey in sbme3bbIraq-1-Sep12-05).